Reel Report: Full moon on 18th could ignite the fishing bite

View full sizeDiving seagulls can lead fishermen to speckled trout and redfish feeding on white shrimp. That type of fishing action could pick up ahead of the Oct. 18 full moon. (Jeff Dute.jdute@al.com)

So Karen turned into nothing worse than an afternoon thunderstorm and the cold front that came through in her wake did nothing but tease those of us hungry for the fall fishing to really kick off.

What we're left with on the Mobile-Tensaw Delta are fish still caught in the midst of the transition from summer to fall patterns.

Of course, much of what happens in the fall depends on the movement of untold numbers of white shrimp that remain comfortably ensconced in their nurseries above the Mobile Bay Causeway.

Water temperature has dipped into the mid-70s on the Delta, and while that's more comfortable for the fish, it's not yet low enough to prompt any major shrimp migration to turn on the bite.

We may get a little help in that regard, however.

There's a very fortuitous full moon next Friday that should motivate shrimp that reached Delta nurseries in July and have already reached maturity to begin their journey back toward the Gulf.

Combined with another cold front forecast to pass through Tuesday or Wednesday and some decent day-long outgoing tides, a bunch of shrimp should be on the move next week.

If you see diving seagulls in the bays and rivers north of the Causeway and on the flats south of it, that's a pretty good indication this scenario is playing itself out under the water.

We just have to hope that as more cold fronts actually make it to the coast they don't dump enough rain above the dams to cause flooding down here on the Delta. That occurred in late November last year, effectively shutting down fishing from the middle of December through late April.

Inshore guide Andrew Carter said there are a bunch of small specks in Turtle Ditch and on the flats south of the Causeway right now. Redfish of all sizes are holding on the grass edges close to deeper channels.

Carter also caught a nice mess of bigger specks up to 3 pounds in Delvan Bay early in the week, but went back a day later and had to grind just to get a bite.

I heard that redfish are on the grass edges, but aren't biting unless there are a bunch of mullet or menhaden also hanging in the grass.

Larry Scott reported that slot redfish are being caught on live and dead shrimp as far north as Gravine Island, though the best bite remains south of I-10.

Carter also reported that a nice school of specks had moved into the Theodore Industrial Canal channel south of Gaillard Island. The channel is marked with a couple of wood pilings.

Since water temperature is a bit higher farther south, not much has changed in lower Mobile Bay and into the Mississippi Sound where speckled trout are still schooled around deep-water structure.

Specks and redfish are also being caught in shallow water around the small barrier islands in Grand Bay and Portersville Bay out of Bayou La Batre and Heron Bay.

Wayne Miller and I had fun catching more than two-dozen bass in a couple of hours on plastics and spinnerbaits even as a stout north wind announced that the last cold front was moving across the region.

The fish were stacked up at the mouths of drains near deeper water in Bay Minette Basin. The biggest was only about a pound, but they all bit like they were 10-pounders.

Unfortunately, Miller said things got tougher as high pressure settled in and the wind insisted on blowing out of the east.

He said stained water injected into the Delta because of a small rise on the Alabama River hasn't helped.